Can I be fired for taking a vacation?

[jumpman86]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY

Hello All,

I am actually asking this question for my mother who work for a small international bank in NYC.

Background:
She has been with this company for the past 25 to 30 years.

She is currently facing the following situation:

My brother will be getting married next year and we will need to be out of the US for 3 weeks for the wedding and therefore she submitted a request for vacation for August of 2009.

The issue is that her supervisor is also planning on taking a 3 weeks vacation during the same time and the problem is that both of them can not be out at the same time. Her supervisor seems pretty firm on the fact that he will be taking off and may not approve my mother's request because of that. However, my mom seeked approval for vacation first but then found out that her boss maybe doing the same.

I wanted to see what options my mother has in terms of taking the vacation. She will need to be at the wedding one way or the other.

I figure 10 months of notice is more than enough for planning and will it be legal if her supervisor rejected her request and take off himself? Will they need a reason to reject her request? I would assume the only reason would be workload related but if she is rejected, how can her supervisor take off?

Just a side note: my mother has been with the company way longer than her supervisor and that her supervisor's boss believe my mom should be approved for the vacation but she will not step in to resolve the issue.

I was hoping to hear what anyone has to say.

Thanks for all your help.

Ed

 

[eerelations]

Because there's no law against it, employers may legally fire employees for taking vacations, even if those vacations were approved by the employers. So yes, your mother's employer can certainly fire her for taking an unapproved vacation. How much notice she gives her employer of said upcoming vacation is irrelevant.

 

[cbg]

There is no state where an employee has a guaranteed right under the law to take a vacation at the time they want to take it. There is no state where the length of time an employee has been with the company affects who gets to take vacation first. There is no state where the employer needs to give, or even have, a reason for declining a vacation request.

The fact of the matter is, with a few exceptions in a few states related to the payout of vacation time at termination, there simply are no laws about vacation time. The federal government has gone on record as saying they don't think it's any of their business and issues about vacation are entirely between the employer and the employee. While a state could put such laws into effect, no state has seen fit to do so. The only exceptions are that about half the states have laws regarding the payout of unused vacation at termination, and California has some laws limiting the application vacation for partial days. No state has any laws even close to providing your mother with the kind of protection you are asking about.

The bottom line is, yes, she can be denied the time and she can be fired if she takes it anyway. I would hope that the employer would be willing to work with her with regards to a once-in-a-lifetime event like this, but they are not required to under the law and there are no laws guaranteeing that she can take the time off that she wants with no repercussions, no matter how much notice she gives and no matter how long she has worked for the company.

 

[xylene]

I was hoping to hear what anyone has to say.

Three weeks is a long vaction request, especially in an industry that is financially on its ass right now and probably would love to have an excuse to let go an expensive senior employee...

 

[jumpman86]

Thanks

Thanks for all the comments. I ll relate this to my mother. I hope that they will work with her but from what I hear, her boss is not a considerate person. He is also going out of the country during that time to celebrate someone's birthday. I hope that he will see that a wedding is once (usually) in a lifetime thing versus a birthday.

On the side note, she is not an expensive employee at all from what I gather but do a whole lot for the company. I doubt they will fire her because of cost issue, IMO.

Thanks to all again.

Ed

 

[cyjeff]

Thanks for all the comments. I ll relate this to my mother. I hope that they will work with her but from what I hear, her boss is not a considerate person. He is also going out of the country during that time to celebrate someone's birthday. I hope that he will see that a wedding is once (usually) in a lifetime thing versus a birthday.

On the side note, she is not an expensive employee at all from what I gather but do a whole lot for the company. I doubt they will fire her because of cost issue, IMO.

Thanks to all again.

Ed

Okay, stop right there.

You know more get to judge the bosses vacation than he can judge your mother's.

The reason behind time off means nothing.

 

[Roo]

Uh huh! The mom asked first.

 

[eerelations]

Uh huh! The mom asked first.

That's completely irrelevant.